Associated or Apparatchik Press

The Associated Press is rigging polls again and is not disclosing the startling fact that its polling firm, GFK, has been granted federal government contracts since Obama has been in office. The news may not surprise the many skeptics of the liberal media because they have come to expect this sort of bias from mainstream press outlets, but this goes beyond bias as usual and well into the area of inventing favorable news for Obama to help create the impression that his reelection is inevitable, which translates into actively participating in his reelection strategy.

Last week the AP reported that their polling firm had determined that Obama would beat any of the Republican candidates in head to head matchups, but a closer look at the raw polling data reveals that the AP and GFK had cooked the numbers by sampling ten percent more Democrat/Democrat leaning than Republican/Republican leaning respondents. Nearly all national polls have determined that there is an even split between Republicans and Democrats, and some pollsters give a slight edge to Republicans. For example, a Gallup poll taken at roughly the same time period as the AP poll was taken shows a far different result: Republican Mitt Romney with a four point advantage over Obama and Rick Santorum in a dead heat.

For the AP, which like the other mainstream media outlets, have made an issue of demanding disclosure from candidates about their political donors in the name of “transparency” this duplicity must be scrutinized. This is a news agency getting apparent special treatment from the government while skewing political news coverage that benefits the Obama administration which controls the purse strings for at least part of their polling firms business. I began investigating this obvious conflict of interest in May of 2011 after noticing an unusual financial relationship between the newswire service, its polling firm GFK, and the federal government – andprima facie evidence that that relationship has influenced the AP’s reporting on the Obama administration.

A May 11, 2011 AP report promoted the idea that President Obama’s re-election was a foregone conclusion based on a poll conducted by its partner firm GFK. Just two months earlier GFK had announced that it had received clearance for federal government contracts to do marketing and research for US government agencies. Closer examination revealed that the May 11th AP report based its conclusions on a severely flawed polling model that provided a significant advantage to President Obama in calculating his favorability ratings on a number of issues from national security to the economy.

The flawed polling data influenced other media including ABC News, Time, The WashingtonPost and YahooNews which ran the AP’s reportage without scrutiny.

The following is from the May 11, 2011 news report and was not labeled commentary:

President Barack Obama’s approval rating has hit its highest point in two years – 60 percent—and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GFK poll taken after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden…

Comfortable majorities of the public now call Obama a strong leader who will keep America safe. Nearly three-fourths – 73 percent – also now say they are confident that Obama can effectively handle terrorist threats.

There was no downside for Obama mentioned in the “news” story authored by Lis Sidoti and Jennifer Agiesta. Neither is there any mention that GFK, the Associated Press partner and the polling firm that conducted this survey, had been approved, two months prior, for a major contract with the federal government. In a press release dated March 1, 2011 GFK revealed the following:

GfK Custom Research North America, an industry leader in innovative market research tools and services, today announced that it has been awarded the General Services Administration (GSA) Mission Oriented Business Integrated Services contract (MOBIS). Having this contract allows GfK to directly and seamlessly serve public sector clients.

As the primary purchasing agent for most US governmental agencies, having the GSA validation signifies that GfK meets the high standards to enable government agencies to easily do business with GfK through various contract vehicles.

According to the AP, “The Associated Press and GfK launched a polling partnership in September 2008.”
According to an analysis by Tom Blumer at Pajamas Media, “AP reporters didn’t … tell readers how “skewed” May’s poll was. Forty-six percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Democrats, 29% as Republicans, and 4% as independents (after classifying leaners); 20% didn’t know. By contrast, the latest available party identification results from Rasmussen as of April have the GOP at 34.8%, Dems at 33.5%, and 31.7% as not affiliated. Gallup, in an aggregate of 21 separate polls conducted last year, shows a Democrat-Republican split of 45%-44%.”

Since nearly all major polling firms consider the Democrat to Republican ratio of voters to be virtually even in number, AP/GfK’s statistical model of 46% sampling of Democrats and 29% Republican would give the appearance of significant advantage in the outcome to a Democrat, in this case Barak Obama.

The author of the tainted story from last May, Liz Sidoti, refused to comment after repeated attempts to allow her the opportunity to defend her reporting. The AP’s reportage was once considered the gold standard of journalism, today it is the tool of a corrupt administration.

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